“I want to talk about being beloved,” Bill Murray said Sunday night in Washington, accepting the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor—a bust statue that he promptly handed to the audience so they could pass it around. “This ‘beloved’ thing has been going on for me for a while. It really could happen to anyone here tonight. It could happen.”

The star of Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and Lost in Translation did not have a speech prepared as he accepted the nation’s top comedy prize. Instead, he talked about growing up as “Little Murray,” the middle of nine kids in Chicago. He thanked his brother, Brian Doyle Murray, for having the guts to pursue improvisational acting (“That’s a big money gig,” he said). He thanked Ethel Kennedy for the prize, and recounted going with his father to hear President John F. Kennedy speak in Chicago, his hometown.

His acceptance speech echoed his sweet and sentimental monologue from Scrooged. “It’s kind of a great night to be here in this goofy, funny town,” he said. “The other night, I was in the Blue Room of the White House—they didn’t know I was there. I was looking out the window, and you see the monument, and you see the memorial right out the window, and your heart just leaps. And you think, Oh, God, it’s real. This is real. It’s something you can touch. It’s not just the stones, it’s the idea of America. It’s the idea that the best of us try and get it done every time we wake up. If you have a good morning, you’re probably going to have a good afternoon.”

He went on: “There’s this little trampoline that’s inside of you that bounces. It’s something that makes you care. It makes you care about other people. It makes you care about yourself. It comes to you, it lands in you, and then you bounce it back out to other people. It’s always coming to you, and you can just keep bouncing it out. Look at each other. Look at who we are. Look at how we are all together here right now. Alive. That’s pretty good, right?”

Beloved as he is, a string of talent was there to pay their respects. His old Saturday Night Live co-star Jane Curtin joked about Murray pulling out her hair and spitting in her food. Jimmy Kimmel called the elusive and unpredictable comedian “the Irish El Chapo” and joked about Murray’s fanatical baseball obsession: “Let’s be honest: if the Cubs won last night, we’d be paying tribute to Bill Hader.” Hader himself did a bit as a Chicago priest (“I have a confession: I haven’t seen Caddyshack. But I have seen video footage of lab rats high on cocaine trying to play golf, and it’s close”).

Sigourney Weaver joked about having a three-way on the set of Ghostbusters.Aziz Ansari shared text messages between the two. David Letterman told a story about how he and Murray were looking for something to do in Montana: “There’s a bar called Chicks about 10 miles down the road,” Letterman had told his fellow comic. “We can go there and get beat up.” Before Letterman could get his shoes on, he said, Murray was in the car. Murray appeared 44 times on Letterman’s shows, including the former Late Show host’s ill-fated, short-lived daytime program. “He didn’t save my show, but he saved me,” Letterman said. “And I thank you for that.” The two blew each other kisses.

Steve Martin appeared via video. “As a previous recipient of the award, I’d like to say welcome to the club. And to the Kennedy Center, I’d like to say: Really?”

Brian Doyle Murray linked his brother to Mark Twain in a story about playing pool at the Player’s Club in New York. The Murray brothers were drinking, smoking, and shooting when Bill Murray grabbed Mark Twain’s pool cue down from the wall display. A nervous bartender told him to return it; Bill obliged, but only after lightly poking everybody in the room with the cue. “I think Mark Twain would want me to do this first,” he said.

Paul Shaffer, with a lit candelabra on a grand piano, paid tribute to Murray’s S.N.L. character Nick the lounge singer. He also introduced A Very Murray Christmas star Miley Cyrus, who flubbed her performance of “My Way” with altered lyrics (“Bill did it his way”)—forcing a retake for the PBS-taped special airing October 28 at nine P.M. “Sorry, guys, I fucked it up,” she said by way of explanation. “I’m too stoned. [Paul] Shaffer told me not to smoke too much.”

From his seat in the balcony, Murray shouted: “We’re safe now.”

Emma Stone, who starred with Murray in Aloha, remembered how Murray cheered her up on set with daily gifts. She also told a story of how Murray carried around a Japanese phrase book while filming Lost in Translation, remembering only one saying, which he used freely: “Now you’re going to die.”

Murray, who has avoided the award like Bob Dylan has dodged the Nobel, shares the honor with an esteemed list of comedians including Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Carol Burnett and Tina Fey.

“As much as I’ve dreaded this, there is love,” Murray said in closing. “And I love you.” Then he sang “Sweet Home Chicago.”